The After Affects of Walker's Cuts to Public Schools: The Future Looks Dim for Public Schools

Class sizes will not be affected? That’s what the radical right wing think tank the MacIver Institute is saying. Walker’s dramatic school funding cuts won’t have any impacted at all. In fact, schools will be better off. Smaller class sizes…

An analysis of new labor agreements in Wisconsin’s school districts indicates requiring teachers to make modest contributions to health and pension benefits can cut the cost of education by $500 per student in Wisconsin, saving school districts hundreds of millions of dollars without affecting class size or course offerings.

Tell that to the individuals at our public schools who have to deal reality, not idealized conservative tripe, to make ends meet now and in the future. Yes, the future.

MacIver is basing much of their right wing joy on the Walker cuts to schools and collective bargaining.  But as the Washington Post pointed out, teachers agreed to the benefits changes before the decision on collective bargaining and before the law finally passed.



That's all it would have taken. But in the future, that's where we're going to see even more cuts. Already, the unintended consequenscenses of Walker's cuts are effecting school nurses in Milwaukee:

jsonline: Aurora Health Care is withdrawing school nurses and nurse practitioners from 10 Milwaukee public schools this coming fall, the Journal Sentinel learned Thursday. Aurora's pullback is on top of a loss of state funding for nurses, which forced the School Board last month to dip into the superintendent's contingency fund to restore 15 of 22 nursing positions that were to be cut. Aurora's services have come at no cost to MPS … Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and other community health organizations are negotiating nursing coverage they will provide to MPS this coming year and are considering increasing their commitment.

And what about having experienced principals on hand to run Milwaukee's public schools?

Thirty-nine MPS schools will have new principals for the fall, the result of more retirements than usual in the district this year.